The Grantham Murders
by ZekaelErebus
Summary: Five years after the apparent murder-suicide of a rich Pennsylvania family a private investigator is hired to re-open the case before a restoration project can sweep away the evidence of what really happened forever. But as he gets closer to the truth an evil that refuses to stay buried gets closer to him. (sequel to the Creepshow segment "Father's Day")
1. Prologue

PROLOGUE

Stanley Untergang adjusted his hard hat and tightened his vest as he hurried through the site of what might be his company's biggest deal yet; the restoration of an old mansion left to rot for five years following the untimely deaths of the family living there. Sad news for them but this deal was worth over three-billion and he would be damned if he let a little tragedy slow things down. And as he eyed one of his men taking an unscheduled lunch break he knew just where to cut the slack.

"Do you think it really happened?," Charlie took a bite of his egg, ham, and tomato sandwich and hastily wiped its spilled excess from his balooning black shirt before continuing without bothering to swallow, "You know, like they said in the newspaper?"

"I don't know man," Randy sat down his saw and peered through a pair of dusty goggles at his much fatter coworker, "They say lots of things. They say two rich jagoffs killed their whole family and then themselves. They say they found them in a circle 'a candles all cut up n'at. They say they dug up their ol' grandpa and the body was never found. Whole thing's pretty far-fetched if you're askin' me."

"Well I ain't askin' you," Stanley stepped in and put the saw back in Randy's hands before grabbing the sandwich from old Chuck, "I'm payin' you bottelhinkels to do a job! This ain't no amateur hour boys. Grantham House is worth a ransom and Mr. Amplas wants it ready in three months yous understand me? So no more ghost stories and get back t'work."

As if on cue, a rattling rang through a nearby cellar door drawing a growl from Stanley, "And what the hell is that?"

"If we got fah-ken rats down here," the harried foreman fumed as he raced down the muddy stone stairs, "I know an exterminator an' me are gonna be havin' words!"

But there were no rats. And there was no cellar like anything Stanley had seen before. The long, brick corridor before him seemed to lead out into others. By the dim illumination of his flashlight the whole thing looked like something that belonged in Paris more than Pennsylvania.

"Rich assholes," he muttered as he wandered further down, his light darting from wall to wall in search of whatever critter had snuck in, "Never appreciate what they got."

Maybe it was the light, or maybe his mind was playing tricks on him, but he swore that some patches on the rocks went from Jim Bean brown to a dried red. As a tinny smell filled his nostrils he thought for an unsettling moment that any kill dragged down here would have to be pretty big to leave that much stain before shaking it off and turning around to leave, "No rats in here."

There were no rats. Stanley could see that. What he didn't see - what he might have seen if he had gone down just a little further - was that the wall's end had a conspicuous looking hole in the center of it from which might have shone the concealed end of a gun barrel belonging to a gun someone had loaded. It might not have mattered though because the gun had been rigged through the floor to fire at anyone stepping on a pressure plate virtually indistinguishable from the uneven masonry that made up the floor. A pressure plate upon which Stanley Untergang had just stepped with heel of his boot as he turned to face the last thing he would ever see.

All anyone upstairs would hear was the gunshot ringing out. But Stanley saw more. Much more. In the light that now spilled from the floor with the one tool that could have saved his life - spilled like the fountain of blood from his chest - a silhouette came into view on the wall. It might have been a man, hunched and gaunt, but for the heavy cloud of decay that swirled around it and made the dying worker vomit shades of red and green bile.

By the time a cold, rotted hand rested firm on Stanley's shoulder, he was far too weak to scream at the hollow voice that gurgled behind him, _**"It's still MY house."**_


	2. Part 1: You're Not Wrong

-I-

Fox Chapel. Pennsylvania borough. Should you find yourself driving these old, rural roads you will notice two things right away. The first is that the scenery is a breathtaking vista of branching trees and polished estates. The second is that not many children can be seen playing in the streets. Idle time is an ill luxury for the very rich and private schools teach early on that a child's time is better spent in more organized pursuits.

It should be no surprise, then, that Richard and Cassandra Grantham were not well liked by their neighbors. Spoiled, vain, and given to thoughtless consumption, the heirs to the Grantham dynasty were the portrait of the idle rich. Richard was a known alcoholic while Cassandra alternated between devouring gentlemen callers and confectionaries as it pleased her.

And yet with envy comes infamy. Because the siblings lived the lives that their peers wished they could have, they were naturally the subject of many a whispered conversation in the smallest rooms of the largest mansions in the state. True to course, their sudden and shocking deaths had cemented them as legends within the social circles of the rich and famous.

None of this mattered in the slightest to Dolores Blaine. Her fair hair blew with a present breeze as her fire red Ford Mustang convertible sped through the county curves in a curiously straight path and her ice blue eyes fixed too long on the horizon in which she hoped to find the answers to questions that had consumed her longer than a campfire tale could have hoped to.

"That Georgina Von Etzdorf tie might be just the thing this year for dear old dad," the radio's pitch to no one blared in the background as the taciturn twenty-something left the country behind and raced headlong into the urbanization of Aspinwall, "And now back to the music. This week's top hit is Dancing In The Dark. Here's The Boss on your Pittsburgh Radio!"

By the time she parked parallel to a pastel blue building somewhere along Commercial Avenue the lyrics were barely a backbeat. Nothing but another moment past as the car door slammed behind and her chat gray heels carried her across the pavement until she was face to face with an unassuming sign on the glass ahead.

JOE VERITY, PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR

WALK-INS WELCOME

"I'll bet," she muttered disdainfully as she flung open the door and strode inside to the herald of ringing bells and approached the man at the desk, drumming her red-tipped nails across it to pull him from his paperwork, "Dolores Blaine. I have a 3:30 with Mr. Verity."

"I see," the young man seated smiled casually through his horn-rimmed glasses, his shaggy brown hair framing his face like a cherub, "He might be in. What's this about?"

"As discussed on the phone," Ms. Blaine pursed her lips and straightened her posture to further accent the authority of her padded jacket, "I'd like to hire the services of your office to find my brother."

"Okay, he's in," Mr. Verity sat back in his chair with a still-casual yet less puckish expression and folded his hands on the desk, "What is the target's name and how long has he been missing?"

"Hank Blaine," Dolores attempted to assert the name betrayed only by the slightest note of desperation brewing in her voice, "He's been missing five years today."

"Impossible," Verity noted matter-of-factly.

"Impossible won't do," Blaine retorted just as matter-of-factly before nearly growling over the desk at him, "He's my brother, he was murdered, and his killer is still out there. You can name your price but he deserves better than 'impossible'."

"Okay," Verity took off his glasses with a more serious look on his face as he looked his prospective client dead in the eyes, "It's like this. Twenty-four hours is iffy. Forty-eight is pushing it. Five years is impossible unless you have something more for me to go on than an accusation."

"How's this?," Dolores slammed a newspaper down so fast that a less collected man would have been startled, if not by the suddenness of the act, then by the grisly photos that graced the cover along with the headline 'SHOCKING CULT KILLING: GRANTHAM CLAN MURDERED IN HOME'.

"I remember that story," the detective's hand studied the picture like a blind man reading braille, "Three rich assholes and their maid got slaughtered. Police ruled it a murder-suicide when they found the two youngest in a circle of candles with knives in their hands and no defensive wounds. Grisly stuff but how does that relate to your brother?"

"Because there was a fifth victim," Dolores pulled the paper back in a clutch, "The police report didn't mention him because he wasn't important enough."

"Wasn't rich enough," Verity corrected, "I looked into it a bit at the time out of curiosity. The crime scene photos did show a fifth victim. Crushed by a tombstone but no one could figure how it fell on him in the first place. Always seemed off to me."

"So off that you spent the next six months following leads," Dolores finished the story she already knew, "Trying to get justice for the man that Fox Chapel forgot. At least until your search lead to a dead end. But what if it didn't have to be that way Mr. Verity?"

"Why now?," Joe sat forward. She had his attention.

"Because the Grantham mansion is being rebuilt as we speak, and with it, the last evidence of what really happened is being swept under the rug," Dolores was all heart now as she pleaded her case, "Mr. Verity, I am standing in this shitty office on this hot summer afternoon ready to pay you every penny that was paid to my family for our silence because it wasn't just curiosity. You gave a damn and I'm gambling you still do. Am I wrong?"

Joseph Verity, the private eye that once told a tearful toddler peddling a story about a lost puppy that he doesn't work for free, reluctantly reached forward and shook the hand of his newest client, "You're not wrong."


	3. Part 2: I'm Sure

-II-

The apartment was a mess. It was a mess from the beer stains on the ugly lime couch to the tasteless yet strangely comfortable clash between the rust red carpet and manilla sheetrock walls to the clutter of dozens of open files scattered about to the not-quite-straight black blinds through which an inside observer could have easily seen a Pontiac Parisienne station wagon whose colors were some horrid mesh of earth-tones and periwinkle pulling up the drive and its master - one Joe Verity in a navy blue coat that matched nothing else he owned - exiting one container for a short walk to another.

As Joe pushed his way through the door, a subway sandwich in one hand and a copy of the Post-Gazette in the other, he was nearly knocked down by an over-eager Great Dane, prompting a half-chuckled half-shouted greeting, "Easy Tallo! I didn't forget you."

On his way to the equally crowded kitchen he managed to stash his dinner on an armchair with one hand and flip on the tv with the other. A short time later he re-emerged in the main room to the sound of Hall & Oates, Tallo still at his heels with his tail wagging wildly, before taking in the absurd sight of the musical duo in some tomb singing about life after high school, "I fed you! I fed you! What the hell is this?"

Turning a blind eye to the crack candy of the MTV generation, Verity let the Top 20 Video Countdown fade to background noise as he picked up the paper and began pouring over the present to reconnect with the past. It didn't take long to find the article he was looking for as the eerily familiar site of that terrible crime was hard-pressed to hide behind a construction crew.

GRANTHAM HOUSE RESTORATION  
HALTED BY ANOTHER DEATH

JUNE 17TH, 1984

FIVE YEARS TO THE DAY OF THE TRAGIC MURDER-SUICIDE OF THE NOTORIOUS GRANTHAM FAMILY OF FOX CHAPEL...

 _Wandering the back acres behind the mansion he could still remember that smell. Somewhere between blood and sugar and formaldehyde a palpable terror filled his younger nostrils. He kept second guessing himself. What was he doing here? What if he got caught?_

 _Joe Verity never second guessed anything when it came to following a lead._

...WHICH HAD FALLEN INTO DISREPAIR UNTIL MARTIN AMPLAS, A DEVELOPER FROM THE NEW ORLEANS METROPOLITAN AREA, PURCHASED THE ESTATE WITH PLANS TO RESTORE THE PROPERTY TO ITS ORIGINAL GLORY...

 _The old stone was massive, nearly filling the open grave. The emergency technicians had barely moved the body from beneath but they hadn't been able to lift it out entirely. Some traces of gore yet remained, though dried, to tell a tale no one wanted to hear. No one but him._

...PROGRESS STALLED ON MONDAY WHEN STANLEY UNTERGANG, FOREMAN ON THE SITE, WAS FOUND DEAD IN THE MANSION'S BASEMENT...

 _Someone had to know. Someone had to tell this victim's story. As he pulled out the camera and readied the shot, Joe had the sudden and immediate sensation of being hunted. The fight-or-flight chill that comes when one knows they are about to be attacked. The feeling seized him so strongly that it pulled him from his task as that fear came at his nose like the uppercut of a fist._

...APPARENTLY THE VICTIM OF A HOME-MADE TRAP SET THERE BY THE PREVIOUS OWNERS FOR REASONS UNKNOWN...

 _The photo was irrelevant. Two images would be burned as crisply as the start of a vinyl record into his mind that day. The first was the word "Father" isolated across that lonely stone. The second stared at him from across the graveyard. Way out among the bushes. It could have been a cluster of blood red berries but for two piercing holes that pulled the world into them like water down a drain._

 _He swore he'd heard it laugh._

The crashing of a glass on the kitchen floor brought Joe back to the present where he lived. The present where silence was a rare luxury in a house with a giant of a dog that didn't know he wasn't still a puppy.

"Oh, bad dog!," Verity scowled paternally at the cowering canine as he entered the room and surveyed the shattered remains of a shot glass in the dimming light that dusk cast across the linoleum. Grabbing a broom from the corner, he couldn't help but grin as Tallo nudged the dustpan forward with his nose and looked up pathetically, "Okay, thanks buddy."

"It was an ugly glass anyway," he sighed and readied the broom for a solid sweep when he swore he saw the reflection of a pair of ice blue eyes staring back at him from the glass. Turning with a start, Joe blinked in confusion as he found only Tallo tilting his head with a whine.

"I've gotta get some air."

Outside, the crisp cut lawn connected to the straight wood fence connected to the red brick building connected to the concrete slab on which he stood was the most normal, boring, comfortable thing Joe Verity had seen all day. As he mechanically slid a pack of Lucky Strike Greens from his shirt pocket and pushed up a volunteer cancer stick for consumption his first thought was that a menthol would be the perfect end to a stressful day. His next thought wasn't really a thought at all so much as shock and confusion as a mottled hand in a plaid blue shirt snatched the cigarette from his hand and casually asked, "Y'got a light?"

Half witless and half robotic, Joe fetched a bronze BIC from the opposite pocket and shakily handed it over. The chill of the hand that took the lighter from his and drew it into the darkness that existed somewhere behind set Joe's mind to racing. He had seen that shirt before. As sure as he heard the flick of that BIC behind his head he had seen that shirt before.

 _John Doe. City morgue. Blonde hair, blue eyes. Face unrecognizable. But you did have a name. As hard as they tried to bury it with your body you had a god damned name._

"Hank," he whispered hoarsely as the lighter slid cooly back into his hand.

"Shh, take a moment," a surprisingly slick and jaunty Jersey accent purred behind him, "You've had a bad day Joey. Bad fucking day."

"Not as bad as you," Joe lit up and didn't dare turn around, "Christ, what happened to you?"

"That's for me to know and you to find out Joe," Hank spat on the last word, "But I'll tell you this much.. You better leave my sister out of it."

"Your sister's why I'm back in it," Verity shot back, the tension in his shoulders more defensive than fearful now, "She gave me more in five minutes than you gave me in five years."

"Sure about that _detective?_ ," Hank's voice continued taunting as if it had a right to speak.

Spinning around, Joe came face to face with no one but his own reflection on the back glass. Just like always.

"I'm sure."


	4. Part 3: Check Bastard

-III-

Grantham House sat ill in its peace on the morning of July 18th. The empty rooms echoed unspoken questions as they labored to stand beneath the weight of five years of cobwebs and one week of sawdust. The furniture sat at odd angles like lovers interrupted. The morning light, though present through the picture windows, offered no warmth to Joe Verity as he entered the building for the first time since that fateful afternoon so long ago.

He wasn't looking for comfort. He knew that, for all their money and possessions, the Granthams had never stockpiled the things that really mattered into this house that posed as a home. Their crypt was a cold reflection of their cold lives. And in that masoleum he hoped to find what the police were unable to, the priveleged refused to, and Stanley Untergang had been forced to.

The truth.

"Hello?," the shamus shouted to a stuffed fox on the landing as he stopped shy of resting his free hand on the rail of the quarter turn stairs. _Can't leave evidence._ _Off the books_.

The sleuth was in fine manic form as he shifted and shuffled his feet up the carpeted stairs, carefully distorting any footprints so they would be unrecognizable. _This carpet reeks of wine_.

An investigator's eagle eye scanned the debris of the upper floor, from chandelier to dresser to coving to rug, looking for anything that didn't belong. Anything that yet remained. _Off the record. Off the books._

A resolute reporterr's hand reached out like a toddler righting himself as he turned a corner and came face to face with an old weathered portrait of an old weathered man presiding over a desktop shrine of newly-lit candles that seemed to churn and spit like foul cigars. The almond eyes that stared out from the picture were those of a living man but the cunning malevolence clinging to those oil-painted orbs of evil evoked a feeling unmistakable. It was the same dread that had nearly stopped his heart five years ago today.

 _Who are you?_

Only this time the voice didn't come from inside his head. The would-be hero's hands raised in surrender at the sickening sound of a pistol cocking less than a yard down the hallway behind him, "Joe Verity. Private consultant. I'm following a lead on behalf of my client whose brother was murdered in this house."

"Murdrered, you say?," the ripened voice of an old man betrayed a note of amusement, "Well that is a story with which this place is unfortunately very familiar. My name is Martin Amplas and I own the deed to this property. You _are_ aware of how property laws work in the state of Pennsylvania, Mr. Verity?"

"Yes Mr. Amplas," Verity replied with as much strength as he could without daring to move a muscle, "I'm aware of how they work."

"Then you realize of course what your presence on the second floor of this private home means and what that meaning entails I trust," the old codger barbed.

"Perhaps you could elaborate?," Joe dared, going for broke.

"It means you are a guest in my house," Amplas chuckled darkly at his quarry's confusion as he holstered his peace, "And protocol demands we discuss your employer's grievance over an 1891 Muscadine red." 

* * *

The clank of full glasses seemed almost as surreal as the lunatic grin on the face of Martin Amplas. Five minutes had done little to calm Joe's nerves as he dutifully sipped the dry red concoction before him and stared stonily across the table in the middle of a still-shuttered study at his gracious host.

"So what now?," Joe broke the silence without ceremony.

"Now we get down to it," Amplas let his smile fade into a more stoic yet somehow whimsical gaze, "That is what you're here for isn't it? Answers?"

When Verity made no immediate reply, Martin propped himself on one elbow, fitted a Gispert between his teeth, and struck a match with his free hand to light it before speaking, "Let's start with the victim's name shall we?"

"Hank Blaine," the detective sat upright, throat tight as he reached absently for one of his menthols.

Sensing the frustration of a fellow smoker perhaps, the perceptive patron intercepted his hand with a second cigar, "Oh no, I insist. A real smoke for a real man. Coming here alone was courageous, if foolish, after all."

Joe Verity hated cigars almost as much as he loved menthols and yet, given the choice between eating shit and eating lead, it was no contest which was the healthier option at the moment. Taking the stogie in hand, and accepting the light that followed, the indentured investigator played a weary smile, "If you insist then."

"Hank Blaine," Martin drew the name out with a drag, "Yes, I think I remember something about a Hank Blaine in the papers. Recently married to our own Cass Grantham wasn't he?"

"He wouldn't have been in the papers," Joe corrected cooly, "Seems the executors of her will wanted the matter of her working class husband kept quiet. Care to elaborate on how you know who Cassandra Grantham was married to?"

"That's rather simple actually," the old fox stared through his tumbler at Joe like the sun through a magnifying glass, "Her great-grand-uncle and I have known each other all our lives. Sweet kid, if spoiled, but she was, after all, one of Nate's clan."

It surely wasn't just the wine that had Joe's head spinning now. Who was this man that knew Nathan Grantham, arguably the richest son of a bitch in the state, on a short-name basis? It was clearly no coincidence he was now the proud owner of the Grantham estate but what was the connection? Why him?

"I see it," Martin smiled knowingly with a toast, "That look in your eyes. You're the kind of man who looks at the horizon and can't rest until he knows what's over the mountain. You're my kind of man Mr. Verity."

"I don't understand," Joe admitted defeat a moment.

"Oh, that'll come," Amplas nodded in smug satisfaction, "But to understand the story you need to go back to the beginning. Back to New Orleans. You leave tomorrow. Expenses paid of course. Unless you'd prefer to think it over in a jail cell for trespassing?"

 _Check_. _Bastard._


End file.
